The Spy Who Loved Me

James Bond (Original Series) #10

by Ian Fleming

Set apart from the other books in Ian Fleming’s James Bond series, The Spy Who Loved Me is told from the perspective of a femme fatale in the making––a victim of circumstance with a wounded heart.

Vivienne Michel, a precocious French Canadian raised in the United Kingdom, seems a foreigner in every land. With only a supercharged Vespa and a handful of American dollars, she travels down winding roads into the pine forests of the Adirondacks. After stopping at the Dreamy Pines Motor Court and being coerced into caretaking at the vacant motel for the night, Viv opens the door to two armed mobsters and realizes being a woman alone is no easy task. But when a third stranger shows—a confident Englishman with a keen sense for sizing things up—the tables are turned.

Still reeling in the wake of Operation Thunderball, Bond had planned for his jaunt through the Adirondacks to be a period of rest before his return to Europe. But that all changes when his tire goes flat in front of a certain motel…

Genres: Fiction, Thriller, Espionage, Adventure, Mystery, Audiobook, Classics

172 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published April 16, 1962

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Ian Lancaster Fleming was an English writer, best known for his postwar James Bond series of spy novels. Fleming came from a wealthy family connected to the merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co., and his father was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Henley from 1910 until his death on the Western Front in 1917. Educated at Eton, Sandhurst, and, briefly, the universities of Munich and Geneva, Fleming moved through several jobs before he started writing.
While working for Britain's Naval Intelligence Division during the Second World War, Fleming was involved in planning Operation Goldeneye and in the planning and oversight of two intelligence units: 30 Assault Unit and T-Force. He drew from his wartime service and his career as a journalist for much of the background, detail, and depth of his James Bond novels.
Fleming wrote his first Bond novel, Casino Royale, in 1952, at age 44. It was a success, and three print runs were commissioned to meet the demand. Eleven Bond novels and two collections of short stories followed between 1953 and 1966. The novels centre around James Bond, an officer in the Secret Intelligence Service, commonly known as MI6. Bond is also known by his code number, 007, and was a commander in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. The Bond stories rank among the best-selling series of fictional books of all time, having sold over 100 million copies worldwide. Fleming also wrote the children's story Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang and two works of non-fiction. In 2008, The Times ranked Fleming 14th on its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".
Fleming was married to Ann Fleming. She had divorced her husband, the 2nd Viscount Rothermere, because of her affair with the author. Fleming and Ann had a son, Caspar. Fleming was a heavy smoker and drinker for most of his life and succumbed to heart disease in 1964 at the age of 56. Two of his James Bond books were published posthumously; other writers have since produced Bond novels. Fleming's creation has appeared in film twenty-seven times, portrayed by six actors in the official film series.

Reviews

[Jayson · Rating 3 out of 5]

(B) 74% | More than Satisfactory
Notes: James Bond, deus ex machina, incongruously stumbles, à la television crossovers, into a coming-of-age romance novel.

[Carmen · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was a disgusting piece of shit. Avoid at all costs.
...

What? You want details? Okay. For one thing, I have no idea what possessed Fleming to write a book from a female first-person perspective. He is a misogynist. Trying to write from a female perspective when you barely acknowledge that women are human is problematic at best.

It seems as if his main aim was to use first-person female perspective in order to write lurid and titillating (to an asshole male reader) scenes of sex from a woman's point of view.

So much sex is in this book, and very, very little of it is even resembling consensual. The whole first third of the book is called "Me" and gives us all the history on our heroine, Viv Michel (Vivienne). Fleming, instead of describing her likes, dislikes, hobbies, personality, friends etc. - decides to give us an in detail rundown of her entire sexual history.

It's very disturbing. I won't go into detail here, but let's just say that from the age of 17, pretty Viv is constantly, daily fighting off men's groping hands and sexual overtures. She has two real lovers, both of who are extreme assholes - one guy who sees her on the side, never ever telling her he's engaged to another woman, and taking her on dates every Saturday while slowly going further and further with her until he talks her into "giving her virginity" to him - which he doesn't even bother to do on a bed, instead he takes her on the floor of a movie theater, and of course they are caught, and she is shamed and humiliated and called "whore" by the people in the theater. Then he leaves her and never sees her again, instead writing her a letter saying "Oh, by the way, I'm engaged. Nice knowing you."

Her second boyfriend isn't any better - a German Hitler sympathizer who is really fucked up about sex. He's engaged to another woman, and tells Viv - his employee and next door neighbor - about every single sexual thing he does with his fiancee in graphic detail. No mention of why Viv doesn't just tell him to shut up and keep it to himself. He puts sex on a schedule - twice a week, and has all these rules about sex that I won't get into, but it's weird. And very creepy.

When his fiancee dumps him (jeez, I wonder why?) he insists Viv must "give him comfort." After two weeks they are regularly having sex. He's just as weird and messed-up with her. At no point does she try to tackle his sexual issues, but instead just goes along with it. Also, he makes her stop drinking and smoking, and she's no longer allowed to listen to jazz.

Finally, she accidentally gets pregnant by him. He immediately breaks up with her and sends her to Switzerland to get an all-expenses paid abortion. She is heartbroken, but of course obeys and doesn't question him, or say 'no,' or make any decisions of her own.

After the abortion, she goes on a fun road trip from Quebec to New York on her little motor scooter. She is, of course, still fighting off men with a stick (almost literally) the whole way. And this is not "fun, oh he's flirting with me," I'm talking about this woman - since she was 17 - being seen as a sexual plaything by every man, boss, coworker, neighbor, hotel employee - whatever. It's so disgusting and disturbing.

SO. She stops at this motel and the husband-wife team say she can stay for free if she works as a receptionist. She accepts the job, even though the husband has fondled her breasts about three times in the 14 hours she's been there. She works there, ducking his groping hands every day and barring her door with a chair every night because he tries to rape her by breaking into her room every night.

THIS IS ALL TREATED AS IF IT IS JUST NORMAL. As if this is exactly the life of a pretty girl and basically all she can expect. I was practically projectile vomiting during this whole novel. Don't even get me started on how Fleming describes the abortion. RAGE RAGE RAGE

Anyway. The hideous couple leaves during the off season and Viv is left alone to tend for the motel. There is a huge storm. Two armed thugs break in. Now we have to suffer through about 20 pages of them groping her, threatening to rape her with very graphic language, stripping her, beating her into unconsciousness, etc. etc. etc. She valiantly fights against them and tries to escape numerous times, but is always caught and brutally punished for it. This makes it sound as if this is going on for days, in fact, this section represents only about five hours or so.

Then, finally, in the last third of the book James Bond shows up. Just as the two were going to start raping her. Nick of time, right? He comes in, looking for help (he got a flat down the road) and immediately gets the gist of the situation. Long story short, thugs die, Viv goes to bed with James.

And that, too, is really problematic. For one thing, both Bond and Viv seem to just completely accept that she's his "prize" and basically his reward for saving her life is getting to have sex with her. After her frankly horrible sexual past, and her EXTREMELY recent sexual assault life-and-death situation, you may think that she might not be feeling so romantic and sexy towards James. Did I mention that she was earlier beaten into unconsciousness and is very bruised and sore?

NONE OF THAT MATTERS. Of course, she has sex with James. Of course, she is instantly in love with him and attracted to him. No need to recover from her ordeal, no need to perhaps deal with the fact that her sexual history is traumatic, and definitely no need to be gentle with her in bed, seeing as she is PHYSICALLY HURT and in pain. Fucking piece of shit!

And then we have this gem:

All women love semi-rape. They love to be taken. It was his sweet brutality against my bruised body that had made his act of love so piercingly wonderful.

Ah, yes, the finally nail on the coffin from Fleming. Bond is rough with her and forceful with her and doesn't really care about her pleasure - in a way that strongly resembles rape if she weren't saying yes and proclaiming herself in love with him - BUT THAT'S OKAY, BECAUSE WOMEN LIKE RAPE, Fleming informs us. All women secretly want to be raped and owned. That fighting and scratching and biting and trying to escape, saying no and crying and stuff is just you know, FOR SHOW. Ignore all that, it only makes sex more exciting for the man (and the woman, who is secretly loving it!) Fleming has put this in a lot of his other novels too (most notably the hideous FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE).

I can't deal with this horrible book. I JUST CAN'T DEAL WITH IT. It's disgusting on so many levels.

This is extra sad, because there are occasions when I enjoy Bond novels, and Fleming CAN make James a halfway decent guy sometimes (only halfway, though). However, just when I was starting to enjoy the series and get into the swing of things, he has to publish this shit. I don't care whether you are a male or female reading this book, it's not appealing at all. Actually, if I were a man I would be fucking insulted reading this book. It's fucking insulting towards men, too.

Alright I've got to end this. I could rant for hours but I won't. DO NOT RECOMMEND. STRONGEST ANTI-RECOMMENDATION.

ETA: And he leaves her! James Bond leaves her to wake up alone, in bed. I hate when people do this. Also, there's a dead body outside her window, the thug James killed last night. Just leaves her there to wake up in a cold bed with a dead body right outside after what was one of the worst nights she'd had in her short life. Real classy, James, you jerk.

ETA 2: I do believe men can write good books from a female perspective. It's definitely possible - I've seen it. However, Fleming is not one of them. I just want to make that clear. The problem isn't that Fleming is a man, it's that he's Fleming.

MOVIE UPDATE: Well, I must admit that I find all pre-Craig movies boring. I am just so bored. The movie has nothing in common with the book except for the title. The 'Bond girl' Anya was completely boring without personality or even many facial expressions. Her tone was flat and listless. Not that Moore's Bond is exactly a font of personality! The best thing I can say about it, and the only thing I enjoyed, is that Moore acts the gentleman. Even the villain was boring and forgettable in this movie. And they give Moore the cheesiest lines. I can't understand why any woman is sleeping with him, to be honest. I have no idea why she let Bond live in the end. It made no sense.

I am not in the spirit of things, I know.
You watched this movie growing up and because of that you are fond of it, I know.
Jaws, I know.
Perhaps I should stop watching the films to accompany the books. I'm not doing myself any favors, that's for sure.

[Baba · Rating 3 out of 5]

First published in 1962, the tenth book in the series, completely unlike the movie of the same name, it focuses on a fallen women with a lot of zest, Vivienne Michel crossing the country on her Vespa and falling afoul of some hardnuts in a remote motel. By a freak accident, along comes James Bond. A surprsingly dark, yet classic James Bond adventure. Three Star stars, a 7 out of 12 read.

2012 read

[BrokenTune · Rating 1 out of 5]

I WAS RUNNING away. I was running away from England, from my childhood, from the winter, from a sequence of untidy, unattractive love-affairs, from the few sticks of furniture and jumble of overworn clothes that my London life had collected around me; and I was running away from drabness, fustiness, snobbery, the claustrophobia of close horizons and from my inability, although I am quite an attractive rat, to make headway in the rat-race. In fact, I was running away from almost everything except the law.

That is not a bad start for a book, is it? It's intriguing. It tells of a backstory that is about to be revealed, and it foreshadows whatever else is going to happen whilst the character is on the run.

To be honest, when I started the book, I was really looking forward to reading this. Not just because it was the beginning of another fun buddy read, but also because I had not read The Spy Who Loved Me before. I knew the film, of course, but the film, I was advised, bears no resemblance to the book. Not even close. So, after a few decent Bond stories that followed the abysmally bad From Russia With Love, I thought Fleming had maybe found his template. That maybe From Russia With Love was him scraping the bottom of the barrel, and that surely ANY other book had to be better.

Well, I was wrong. I was so wrong.

Also, when reviewing that hot mess that is From Russia With Love, I did mention that it would have been helpful if Fleming had provided a bit more insight into the internal monologue of the books female lead. Yes, I bemoaned that Fleming did not write any part from the female perspective.

Well, folks, it goes to show that I should be careful what I wish for because Fleming did exactly that in The Spy Who Loved Me, and it does not work. What Fleming gives us is Viv, a young Canadian whom we again learn very little about other than she's been in some seriously messed up relationships. Yes, Fleming defines her through the relationships she's been in, mostly being taken advantage of.
What doesn't work about this is that Viv's own account is just dripping with Fleming's misogyny. At one point, he has her describe an abortion as follows:

It was as mentally distressing but as physically painless as I had expected, and three days later I was back in my hotel.

That is all Fleming has Viv say about it. Doesn't sound convincing, does it.

Fleming tries to sell her history as a tough backstory and which is supposed to set Viv up for a resolution to stop being a push-over, be more confident, and not be groped at every turn.

Well, that was the end of that! From now on I would take and not give. The world had shown me its teeth. I would show mine. I had been wet behind the ears. Now I was dry. I stuck my chin out like a good little Canadian (well, a fairly good little Canadian!), and having learnt to take it, decided for a change to dish it out.

So, Viv ends up "on the run" in rural New York, stuck in a short-term motel job, where again she first falls prey to the husband of the owner and then ends up being held for five hours by two thugs who beat her up and threaten her with rape every five minutes. And for a large chunk of the book, this is all the plot there is. Until Bond turns up and saves the day, upon which Bond claims Viv as his reward.

Let's recap: Viv had just undergone severe beatings, rape and death threats, and the one thing on Bond's mind is to have sex with her.

The idiotic thing - well, another one, is that Viv, who previously had resolved to escape from abusive relationships, feels she had to go along with Bond's request.

But I knew in my heart that I had to. He would go on alone and I would have to, too. No woman had ever held this man. None ever would. He was a solitary, a man who walked alone and kept his heart to himself. He would hate involvement. I sighed. All right. I would play it that way. I would let him go. I wouldn’t cry when he did. Not even afterwards. Wasn’t I the girl who had decided to operate without a heart? Silly idiot! Silly, infatuated goose! This was a fine time to maunder like a girl in a woman’s magazine! I shook my head angrily and went into the bedroom and got on with what I had to do.

WTF??? Why???

This is the point in the book when I no longer asked myself if Fleming lost his mind, but whether he had one in the first place.
And as if this wasn't sick enough, it actually got worse:

I think I know why I gave myself so completely to this man, how I was capable of it with someone I had met only six hours before. Apart from the excitement of his looks, his authority, his maleness, he had come from nowhere, like the prince in the fairy tales, and he had saved me from the dragon. But for him, I would now be dead, after suffering God knows what before. He could have changed the wheel on his car and gone off, or, when danger came, he could have saved his own skin. But he had fought for my life as if it had been his own. And then, when the dragon was dead, he had taken me as his reward. In a few hours, I knew, he would be gone – without protestations of love, without apologies or excuses. And that would be the end of that – gone, finished. All women love semi-rape. They love to be taken. It was his sweet brutality against my bruised body that had made his act of love so piercingly wonderful.

Seriously, what utter bullshit! I have not felt so nauseated and enraged by a book since
From Russia With Love. I had hoped Fleming got his act together in the books that followed, but clearly he was a leopard that could not change his spots, which is a shame because the premise of the book was great. It is just that a misogynist dumbass writing from a point of view he has no interest in understanding or even exploring will inevitably end up with a book full of misogynist dumbassery.

Avoid at all costs.

[Lyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a story unlike any other in Ian Fleming’s series of James Bond novels – a first person narrative told from the perspective of a young woman who is rescued by Bond.

Akin to the short story “Quantum of Solace” this is not really a Bond story in that it is instead an examination of the Bond myth peripherally, told by a witness to his acts. Vivienne Michel is a young French-Canadian with a troubled past who finds herself caught up in a crime scene in the Adirondacks. 007 happens along and in sterling Bond fashion does what he does best.

Fleming was perhaps stretching his narrative muscles and demonstrating that he was not just a one trick pony. His writing from this perspective is fresh and vibrant and while it is not a Bond story in the sense that fans are accustomed, it is a good story in its own right and it shows how good a writer was Fleming.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ian Fleming's most unusual James Bond novel is told through the eyes of the fictional character Vivienne Michel. While working & living at the Dreamy Pines Motor Court near the Canadian border she sits & thinks back over her life as a storm approaches. When, over half way through the book, James Bond eventually appears you feel he's almost arrived in the wrong story.
This a is a really wonderful character driven story that is incredibly atmospheric. Fleming was never totally happy with the novel & insisted that only the title was to be used if it was ever filmed. While Roger Moore's 1977 Bond outing bears no resemblance to the novel gangster Sol Horror (with his steel capped teeth) is an obvious basis for the film's villain Jaws.
I've found that over the years the more times I read The Spy Who Loved Me the more I enjoy it. It may be very different to the usual 007 formula, but it's a refreshing & rewarding read & is probably Ian Fleming's most underrated piece of writing.

[aPriL does feral sometimes · Rating 1 out of 5]

"All women love semi-rape. They love to be taken." --Ian Fleming, writing as the character Vivienne Michel in 'The Spy Who Loved Me'.

🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬

In a word. No.

>: @

No. Just no. Maybe there are a few, like one or two, female kinksters, who agree with the above sentiment expressed by the fictional narrator of this James Bond book, Vivienne Michel, created by a male author. But for the huge, HUGE majority of women, rape is a criminal act, prosecutable, damaging, hateful, a horrible abuse resulting in a lifetime of PTSD. Most women do NOT want to be taken, shaken, stirred or raped, against their will. Women are sentient people of rational flesh and blood, not a glass of alcohol.

The James Bond books were written by a man for men, male Romances full of fictional wish-fulfillment. However, I have seen enough of life to know some men think these fictional ideas by men about women could be real, have hopes it is real, that young beautiful women want men to take them by force. In my entire life, the numbers of women I know who have ever wanted rape is ZERO. Women may succumb, give in, to Fear, be mortally afraid of a stronger person physically, or be afraid of a rich powerful man with power over a women's livelihood. How many of you men are desiring to be tortured, beaten and raped against YOUR will in an underground garage or in a dirty alley or a closet or in a store by a gunman where you went to pick up some milk for your kids, and/or then maybe face continuing blackmail held over you? Or would you, as Fleming imagines, after being sexually molested and beaten unconscious, wake up and go home to have immediate wild sex with your partner while still leaking blood all over under your skin?

The idea I have got from reading these novels so far is James Bond seems into or up against the type of women who are generally psychopaths, prostitutes or thrill-seeking beautiful adventurers like himself. Until now, the most irrational scenes Fleming has written have been about how every woman falls in love with Bond (including a lesbian), and Bond with them, many at first sight, in fact, usually after one lame conversation. (One area in which Fleming is weak as a writer is dialogue.)

My advice to you, my hopefully gentle reader, especially teen readers, do not risk prison by testing Fleming's ideas about women on real women. Many novels written by men for men are male romances full of wishful thinking which do not reflect Reality on ANY level. Always ask for sex, verify the feeling is mutual if you feel it is likely that sex is in the offing. Get explicit consent. Women who say NO mean NO. Women are not eager to get pregnant, torn up into bleeding meat or get a disease through rape. Would you, male readers? Women will hate you for using force, and some will try to kill you, even back in the early 1960's when 'The Spy Who Loved Me' was written. Admittedly, most women walk away (if they haven't been murdered) and want to forget they were raped because for some strange reason society reviles and blames women who get raped, but many women will wait, and wait, and wait, until they see a chance to get you back - and Put. You. Down. Or at minimum, gloat and exult when, not if, someone else takes you down...

James Bond is a fictional character of exaggerated and very toxic masculinity. A James Bond novel is about a brutal man doing brutal things against other brutal men. The novels are sometimes intentionally comical because it can't happen that a one-man army wins against multiple armies of men with massive amounts of unlimited armaments and technology dozens and dozens of times in real life. I am sure Ian Fleming knew by the time he wrote this novel how much of a cartoon his character James Bond was - after all, Hollywood with all of it's Tinseltown representatives were knocking at his door with lawyers and contracts slavering to make movies based on his character with scenes of cars going about one mile an hour driving down narrow alleys for five minutes on two wheels, and with bad guys with steel teeth who could survive an electric shock that would kill a moose (this toothy actor, btw, had medical health issues in real life). Sean Connery, the actor who first played James Bond, is now 88 years old and walks with a cane and a health aide. He seems a sweetheart and a gentleman. (See Janice's comment below.) Connery had very much a sense of how ridiculous the character James Bond was, and said so, on occasion. Connery never did the stunts in the movies. Got it? Any real James Bond character would have had to retire from the injuries he supposedly sustained in the first book in this spy series, especially so, in Casino Royale, and maybe he would have died from many of the other injuries James Bond endures in the following books if any real person experienced them. Every women Bond meets falls in love with him. Male readers - have you ever seen any of this in real life? If you guys want to stay out of trouble, keep in mind fictional books provide wish fulfillment and symbolic reality - not Reality.

Written in the same paragraph as the rape sentiment above which has enraged and distracted me:

"It was his sweet brutality against my bruised body that had made his act of love so piercingly wonderful. That and the coinciding of nerves completely relaxed after the removal of tension and danger, the warmth of gratitude, and a woman's natural feeling for her hero."

This part of Vivienne's attitude has been known to happen - in consensual desire. But in the circumstances which occur in this book? NEVER!

Eat dirt and die, male scum!

*ahem*

Anyway. So.

Putting aside my outrage and irritation, temporarily, with Men (you foul bastards!), the book is an unusual one for a James Bond story. It is narrated in first person by a female protagonist. Fleming shows her constantly under sexual pressure her entire life, from her childhood in Montreal - where her family pressures her with sexual morality and marriage, to every job she has - where men paw and proposition her a lot. This is true to life, gentle reader. Although the character Vivienne is gorgeous, in the real world the only qualification every women needs for the often unwelcome attention of men is to be female. We don't even have to be young or awake. Male attendants have raped unconscious female ninety-year-olds in nursing homes.

Vivienne has a series of tragic romances with cads in London - the first one being a hot rich guy (scum!), Derek Mallaby, who relentlessly pressures for months virgin schoolgirl Vivienne into sex ; the second being a weird scientific-sex adherent, Kurt Rainer (scum!) - so she returns to her home in Montreal and her aunt six years after she had left.

She had gone to London to attend a finishing school. After Derek (scum!) dumped her a minute later after he finally 'takes' her in sex, she got a job as an editorial assistant and reporter for a London newspaper. On the job, she met Kurt (scum!) in Munich. Kurt (scum!) gets her another, better reporter job and she is stationed in London. Vivienne first nurses him through a breakup with a German girl, then becomes his buddy with benefits. She falls kinda in-like with Kurt (scum!), but he coldly ends it the night she tells him she is pregnant. He pays for an abortion in Switzerland.

Sad, Vivienne takes a vacation motoring down Route 2, then Route 9 on her Vesta scooter from Montreal, intending to meander down to Florida. Instead, she stops at The Dreamy Pines Motel in Lake George in the Adirondacks to stay for a night, but she takes a job when offered to make some money as a receptionist, despite that the co-manager Mr. Phancey (scum!) molests her every chance he gets, even in the presence of Mrs. Phancey.

Vivienne is left in charge, supposedly for only one night, when the Phanceys leave after closing the motel down for the end of the tourist season in October. The owner, Mr. Sanguinetti, will come the next day to get the keys, Vivienne is told.

That night criminals (scum!) break in and make Vivienne cook for them. Of course they molest and beat her, threatening even worse as soon as they finish eating.

Guess who shows up suddenly with a flat tire, fully cocked and loaded?


This is absolutely the worst book in the series I have read so far. Fleming knows as much about how women feel in the aftermath of sexual abuse as I do about how girl cats feel about getting pregnant from a stray boy kitty (scum?). The only reason it is getting at least one star from me is because it does dramatically show the actual molestation, threats of molestation, and constant pressure for sex EVERY female undergoes in her school, job and vacationing life. He utterly minimizes or misses the rage, hatred, fear, disgust, misery and homicidal urges we women become adept at handling and suppressing (or not).

Brutalized, her virginity 'taken' by force and guile, utterly abandoned twice, once by a man while carrying his child as well as by a man who lied about his engagement to another even while forcing her to have sex which resulted in blood on the sheets, her breasts and buttocks being pinched and squeezed by men everywhere she works, threatened/molested/beaten by bad guys, beautiful Vivienne's attitude is so plucky shortly afterwards she immediately wants to fuck Bond to thank him for his service. Yes, I am spoiling. I don't care. This book is outrageously insulting to all women in the world.

[Darwin8u · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Love of life is born of the awareness of death, of the dread of it. Nothing makes one really grateful for life except the black wings of danger."
― Ian Fleming, The Spy Who Loved Me



Reads more like a John D. MacDonald thriller than a typical James Bond novel. I liked it. It was like James Bond was tired of catching crap about not being able to write or develop female characters, so he wrote a novel entirely from the perspective of the woman. Unfortunately, at the end, it was STILL a woman in peril cliche. But a good read, still.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 2 out of 5]

“It was like a miracle to suddenly see him here, out of the blue.” –Vivian, speaking of James Bond

The Spy Who Loved Me (1963) is the tenth book in Ian Fleming’s spy thriller series featuring James Bond, except this one doesn’t feature Bond. Spy is a departure from any approach he ever took before in that it is 1) his initial first person account and one 2) told from the perspective of a woman.

If you know Sean Connery’s Bond, the Bond of the movies, could you believe a movie with Bond in iy might focus on the perspective of one of the women he meets? Maybe. Having read the novels, featuring Bond, the largely misogynist mouthpiece for the misogynist author (i.e., Pussy Galore, Octopussy, and so on), having heard Fleming’s Bond’s disdain for women (unless he can bed one of them for a short time, of course), can we imagine a successful Fleming novel from a woman’s perspective?

Nope.

But hey, let’s consider it for a minute: Fleming has created a few strong women in his books, women with various spy skills, some very smart and some physically powerful, though they are always ultimately secondary to Bond, and their skills are always secondary to their beauty. They are always beautiful and usually shallow, and good in bed, which is why so many men seem to like them (including me at times, I'll admit, especially as a teen). In this book 2/3 of the time is focused on two failed relationships of Vivian, a rich and shallow person; she's basically taken advantage of sexually by two men who use her and desert her. Vivian is sick of men; we sympathize with her. This is not a Bond story, not a thriller, but okay, good if you just want a story about a rich girl on her own, I guess.

Vivian decides to buy a Vespa and go on a road trip to see America; on the route south from New England, she works in a motel and is taken hostage by two American gangsters, Sol Horror and Sluggsy Morant (ugh, those names!), reminiscent of typical American noir thugs who (again, two more jerks/men) terrorize and brutalize her; again, we sympathize with her as a woman (in peril). And then, out of the blue and into the motel walks Bond who has a blown tire, needs a place to sleep, and quickly rescues Viv and with whom--within six hours—she falls deeply into love, with “the ideal male,” with whom she has sex with once before he leaves for good.

Traumatized and used by men throughout the book, Vivian understands that Bond also will leave her, that he is solitary, needs no one, but he is still for some inexplicable reason "ideal" for her, her hero in the same way damsels in distress fall in love with their knights in shining armor.

“I would stay away from him and leave him to go his own road where there would be other women, countless other women, who would probably give him as much physical pleasure as he had had with me. I wouldn’t care, or at least I told myself that I wouldn’t care, because none of them would ever own him—own any larger piece of him than I now did.”

Doesn't this sound like it is Fleming's idea of an ideal woman who can put up with any philandering possible and still be there for him? Most critics hated this book (though a couple liked it as a kind of attempt as a Daphne du Maurier “romance”!), the public hated it, and Fleming hated it, refusing to have any of the plot used in any film by its name, so when that title was finally used, in 1977, only the steel-toothed character of Horror was included, although under the name Jaws. I don’t recall the film at the moment, but I really did not like this failed attempt at writing from a woman’s perspective.

Some of the writing is a decent imitation of American noir, maybe, but Bond never seems real here to me in the way he does in other books. It's almost as if it were written very early on, not as a ninth novel featuring Bond as a developing character. It's Bond as seen by one of his shallow women, as a god, which is the brand Fleming created for him. While I have some sympathy for Vivian in the beginning of this (essentially) non-Bond book, I don’t like her sudden shallow turn to fall in love with Bond--The Spy Who Loved Me For One Night?!! I don't recommend this as thriller or romance.

[Richard Derus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating: 3.75* of five

1977's film, not 1962's book, is under discussion. The film is not one single thing like the book. Apparently, the story was forbidden to the filmmakers, though not the title. I had no idea the films were so contentious, litigious, and all-around ornery to make! This rewatch has been quite an education.

I now know I will never be A Critic, as in publicly known to the civilians, in books, music, or film. I hate the Po-Mo MFA Pit-Sniffers in vogue among Those Who Read Seriously (tedious people, even bores avoid them). I LOATHE rap, hip-hop, hoop-hup, elektronik bullshit non-music. And, yodels from the film establishment aside, I thought this entry in the series was ~meh~ because the villain's a bore, the Bond Girl looks like an insect with a boob job, and it stars Simon Templar.

Loved the car. A Lotus that turns into a submarine? Yee-haw! Since Jaws was our baddie's executioner, and actor Richard Kiel isn't blond, built, or hunky, there was a regrettable dearth of blond henchrat scenery to admire. Q was wonderful as always, and the death of Desmond Llewellyn is never more keenly disappointing than when comparing today's line-up with the classics.

The Egypt and Sardinia scenes are lovely; Stromberg's underwater castle is amazing and I want one; Bond's loser suits are a little less obviously made by Haggar out of Ban-Lon than before.

So why be so generous? This sounds like a squeak-to-make-three-stars review. Nobody Does It Better is why. Ubiquitous tune in 1977. Every time I started my car, this tune came on. I like it even now, Carly Simon's voice is that delicious to me. And Carol Bayer Sager ("Don't Cry Out Loud") writes the hell out of a song! Marvin Hamlisch ("The Sting" and A Chorus Line) composed it; he's got one helluva track record too.

So here endeth my re-watch. After this, all the ones I haven't watched aren't connected to Ian Fleming's books at all, until the Craig reboot of Casino Royale. It's been a big ol' hoot, I've had fun, and now I'm curious about the stuff that's gone on AROUND the films. Must find out if anyone's written about that yet.

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

Annoyed by this, the altogether oddest of the James Bond novels? Well, all I can say (as a proud Canadian) is



Yes, folks, for whatever reason Fleming not only decided to experiment with writing a book from the first person perspective of a proverbial "Bond Girl", he also somewhat randomly decided to make her a Québécoise French Canadian orphan who had had a rough time of it, relatively speaking, in life and love in London as a young woman and thus, entirely logically of course, decided to buy a sexy Vespa and an even sexier Vespa outfit to drive from Montreal to Florida sightseeing and taking casual labour jobs such as waitressing along the way. What could possibly go wrong?


Fortunately Viv never quite goes the full Mitsou.

If this set up seems lengthy and overly involved it very well should as it takes up literally the first half of the book. Our Hero 007 doesn't show up until almost 2/3rds of the way in, mostly to serve as a shining exemplar of decisive masculinity following the sordid behaviour of the narrator Vivienne's previous two caddish lovers. This is why I have no choice but to really slate this one, it honestly could have worked so much better as one of Fleming's short stories like the ones I recently listened to in For Your Eyes Only. Instead, perhaps out of a need to deal with some personal issues, the author goes into insufferable detail as to the circumstances and life history of Vivienne when I feel less could have been more. Surely the attempt to write from the perspective of a sexually awakened young person in the early swinging sixties was outré at the time but it comes across as more than a little gross now, particularly when Viv drops pearls of wisdom such as, "All women love semi-rape. They love to be taken."


Cringe...

As for JB himself he literally just appears in order to "hit it and quit it"- after saving Viv from a couple of fairly conventional upstate New York mobsters intent on killing her and making her the scapegoat for an insurance scam he is literally out of there before the crack of dawn, though somehow he has the time to write a lengthy letter to let her know she's a great girl and he'll send the highway patrol to see to her, etc., etc.



His characterization seems a little off, as well- although numerous times he's described as a cold-hearted killer and an apex predator, yadda yadda, at one point he neglects to gun down the two antagonists while their hands are occupied carrying heavy old-timey television sets because, as he claims afterward, he's always had trouble doing it in cold blood.


Yep, he seems real broken up about shooting a punk.

Audio Note: The edition I listened to was narrated by noted film and television actress Rosamund Pike and she did a predictably fantastic job with the material provided to her. She also did a brief interview about her experience recording the book that added considerable value to what was otherwise a vexing experience.

[F.R. · Rating 2 out of 5]

‘The Spy who Loved Me’ is of course the ‘odd’ James Bond novel. The book which is told from a female point of view, the episode where Commander James Bond is not even mentioned until over halfway through, the one which doesn’t seem like a spy novel at all. It’s an interesting experiment, but what struck me on (re-)reading it now was how poorly conceived and badly executed it was.

Nothing in Ian Fleming’s other novels suggests that he had a great understanding or appreciation of female characters. Their role is to appear as sexy as hell, flirt, maybe give over a crucial bit of information and then at the end be saved by the dashing hero. It’s therefore possible to see it as brave for Fleming to throw away his bag of tricks and go for a female point of view. The problem is that Vivienne Michel – the ‘Me’ of the title – is one of the more irritatingly insipid characters in fiction.

Let me just describe her: she is gorgeous and unworldly; has had sexual experiences but never been with a real man; is resourceful, but only to a point; is brave, but only to a point; and as such is desperate for a hero to come in and save her. Even as the main protagonist of the piece, her sole role is to await the heroic man who she will worship for ever more. This therefore is the perfect Bond heroine, but that of course makes her more of a fantasy than a real woman.

And then, as the olive in the martini, we find passages like this:

“All women love semi-rape. They love to be taken. It was his sweet brutality against my bruised body that made his act of love so piercingly wonderful... I had no regrets and no shame. There might be many consequences for me – not the least that I might be dissatisfied with other men. But whatever my troubles were he would never hear of them.”

I can imagine that old Etonians of Fleming’s vintage felt that this was a true insight into the female psyche, but surely even in 1962 that passage must have raised some eyebrows.

A character like Vivienne Michel may suffice in a normal Bond novel, where the reader isn’t often given access to her thoughts. (My edition actually has her listed as the co-writer – as if she was a living, breathing person who told Fleming her story.) But for Fleming’s fantasies of womanhood to be asked to carry the whole narrative only serves to show how out of touch and lost in his boy’s own world the author was.

‘The Spy who Loved Me’ isn’t merely an ‘odd’ book, it is the ill starred backstairs child of James Bond novels.

[Steve Payne · Rating 4 out of 5]

The life story of one Vivienne Michel and her meeting with James Bond.

Told in the first person by the character Vivienne Michel, this makes it the odd novel out in the canon. Reading the entire series (for a third time), this is the book I've had the biggest change of mind over. I've always considered it the weakest, but I think that was due mainly to the shock of a very different formula. Though still far from being a favourite, it's the first time I've read it and actually enjoyed it. The novel is broken into three parts. Part One is Vivienne Michel's tangled life story (which I'd previously found boring, but now took the time to follow and found entertaining), Part Two is the predicament she gets into, and Part Three sees the arrival of Bond.

It makes for an entertaining change from the usual formula, but I can't think what Fleming was thinking when he chose to alienate his customers with this very different book. They would have waited a whole year for its arrival and I can only imagine their disappointment.

It's the fact that the book is so different to the others but still manages to display Fleming's flair for pace and observation, and retain the familiar atmospheric sense of place and time that makes this curio so readable. Just don't expect a big action adventure.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Vivienne Michel is in trouble, this is her tale of that moment in time when she was in trouble and then got saved by that white knight whose name was Bond, James Bond.
This tale feels like a sequel of the short story in the short story collection called “For your eyes only” in which 007 traveled to Canada to do his boss's bidding and be truthful to his license to kill.
This book is not about 007 himself the story is told from the viewpoint of Vivienne, and is more about the impact 007 has on the life of this particular damsel in distress he saves.
A worthy writing experiment by Ian Fleming to show the impact 007 has on the lives around him especially when he steps in to save the day.
What is different about this novel is that it departs from the usual fare that the baddie that 007 stops is not an actual threat to the interests of the UK. In fact the main character is Viv and she tells her story where the participation of James Bond is a small but deciding part of her story. 007 is nothing more than a mystery man whose interference is saving her life.
This book is considered by many as an inferiour 007 novel, I feel it feels more like a Dashiel Hammett or Raymond Chandler pastiche and as such quite a lot of fun, it is Fleming’s attempt at Noir.

[Michael · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wow. This was something else. A terrible, terrible something else.

The Spy Who Loved Me differs from all of the other Bond books, in that it's written in the first person, from the perspective of Vivienne Michel, a vivacious young lady who finds herself alone, looking after a motor lodge in north-eastern America.

The book falls into three sections... the first looks at Vivienne's background and how she came to find herself babysitting an empty motel. Essentially, this is a depressing look at the girl's two crashingly unsuccessful relationships - losing her virginity to a cad, and falling pregnant to a German reporter (who promptly sacks her and insists that she use her redundancy check to pay for an abortion).

You know how I'd previously observed that Fleming tended toward misogyny... yeah, this is like a nasty culmination of that line of thinking.

Anyway, Michel returns to her native Canada, decides to drive a Vespa down the east coast to Florida. En route, she finds herself being asked to look after this motel. Unfortunately, the owner plans to set fire to it with Michel still there. Oh noes. Soon, she finds herself confronted with two hired goons who plan to have some entertainment with the young lady before torching the place.

So begins act two - another rather nasty series of chapters featuring said goons terrorising young Ms Michel. To be honest, by modern standards, they're not excessively brutal - there's a lot of implied threat, and they get her to make scrambled eggs for them.

But, who should appear in act three but James Bond, who saves the day. The plot picks up a bit at this point - which is just as well, because frankly it's been something of a yawn getting here. Bond joins the story for five chapters, and then sods off.

Needless to say, she melts in Bond's arms and declares the immortal line that "All women love semi-rape." I don't think I need to offer too much of a comment on that...

Oh, and for those of you hoping for Union Jack parachutes, and nuclear submarine kidnap, there's none of that... The book has nothing in common with the film, other than Bond being in it... and he's in the film a good deal more than the book.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this one much more than Casino Royale. This is told from the perspective of a woman named Vivian, who manages to comment on Bond's "sweaty, naked chest" a couple of times while getting shot at. It was apparently worth the risk of getting shot just to have this view.

Vivian is on a road trip after two failed love affairs when she's offered a temporary job at a motor court. On her last day on the job some mobsters show up and try to rape, beat, and kill her. Lucky for her Bond happens to have a tire puncture and needs a room for the night. Very lucky for her ;)

Bond saves the day and they have a night of passion, or "semi-rape" as Vivian calls it, and then he rides off into the sunrise. First, "semi-rape"? Really? The idiot author actually said that this is something every woman wants to experience. It doesn't sound like a great idea to me but I haven't seen Bond's sweaty, naked chest. Maybe I'd change my mind.

One thing that was really odd about this is it wasn't like he was being the reticent spy, working for a government, and trying to keep classified information to himself. He told her about everything he was doing, including SPECTRE, to the point that it was definitely oversharing. I realize Fleming probably wanted to let us know what was up in Bond's life but this part just didn't ring true.

Overall I really enjoyed this one. And Rosamund Pike's narration was absolutely excellent and I'm really glad I listened to the audio.

[Razvan Banciu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Totally different to the rest from the series, as Bond enters the story only in its final third. Until then there is Vivien's story, quite an interesting one; the style, her adventures, life seen thru woman eyes, the epics, all of them do not match to the usual Fleming pattern, so reading the novel becomes quite exciting.
Unfortunately, a couple of pages, those with the fight against the two villains spoil almost the entire work: they are stupid enough to let their guns and carry tv. sets, Bond and Viv have two guns but no brains, Sluggsy survives from the car's jump in the ocean and all at once has a gun, only to miss the shot and being killed by a dormant Bond...

[Kristiana · Rating 1 out of 5]

Craptacular.

[Asghar Abbas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. Mr. Bond beats up some baddies up in Long Island. I think. It was alright. Usually, what happens is, Bond meet women, fucks them and leave them emotionally scarred, a mess. Here, in this instance, a woman meets Bond, he fucks her and leaves her emotionally scarred, a mess. Groundbreaking stuff like that. Subversive, but not quite. Not yet, not there.

What I did like was how at the end of the novel, the State Troopers told our heroine how Bond actually is a bad guy, and rightfully so, he behaves like one too, so they reckoned he might be able to protect her. But you know what though? Sansa is absolutely right; No one can protect anyone.

I also liked that this book was my first encounter with the ugly Bond. The Real Bond, one might say. He was never hideous, but he came across as very dark and twisted, really damaged. Which is apt and proper. He is a low rent killer after all, but Daniel Craig brought certain vulnerability to the iconic but always too unrealistic role, that I appreciate. Books' Bond was never supposed to be handsome. I am glad the movie Bond finally caught up with that. Now maybe we'll get uglier Bonds.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bond #10 uses the first 2/3 of the novel introducing us to a Canadian girl who was transplanted to England. Her introduction to 20's love is disheartening, as her romantic interests are too sophisticated and mean for her.

She buys a Vespa and has it shipped back home to Canada, with the intention of taking her scooter on the road, sightseeing on the way to Florida. She encounters an older coupling running a motel in the Northeastern US who take her on for a couple of weeks. Her job will be to greet guests and register them, with a little room cleaning thrown in, for some room and board.

Enter the bad guys, two thugs from a New York crime family representing the creep who owns the motel.

Bond finally shows up on an unrelated matter just as things are getting dicey for our heroine.

Action towards the end as the motivations of the bad guys play out.

[Sandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although the fifth James Bond movie, 1967's "You Only Live Twice," was the first film in the series to radically differ from its source novel, perhaps no other 007 picture jettisons author Ian Fleming's original conception as completely as 1977's "The Spy Who Loved Me." In essence a remake of "YOLT," substituting nuclear subs for manned space capsules (check out the point-by-point comparison of the two films in Raymond Benson's excellent "James Bond Bedside Companion"), Roger Moore's third outing as Bond was a big, splashy, colorful and superbly entertaining film, sharing its title--and absolutely nothing else--with Fleming's original book. And this was quite deliberate, apparently, and by Fleming's request. The book, originally released in April 1962 and the 10th of 14 in the Fleming series, is, in many ways, the oddball of the Bond canon. It is the shortest of the 007 novels, the most sexually explicit, and, most significantly, is narrated in the first person...and by a woman, to boot! And whereas in the fifth book of the series, 1957's "From Russia, With Love," Bond didn't make his entrance until page 72, here, we must wait until page 90 (I am referring to the classic Signet paperback editions here; the run of books that was so popular during the 1960s, at the height of the "spy craze") for Bond to appear. Fortunately, it is well worth the wait, and his entrance at that point is as dramatic as can possibly be.

"TSWLM" takes the form of a manuscript that Fleming tells us was sent to him by a 23-year-old French Canadian woman named Vivienne Michel, and one that allows us to see Bond "through the wrong end of the telescope." Vivienne's manuscript is cleverly divided into three sections. In "Me," we learn of her background, including her childhood in Canada, her finishing-school years in London, and her two unhappy love affairs with men who turned out to be callous cads, leading to her decision to tour the U.S. on a Vespa and her short-term gig working at a motel near Lake George, N.Y. In "Them," we learn of how two thugs, Sol "Horror" Horowitz and Sluggsy Morant, had beaten her at the abandoned motel--for reasons unknown--and were about to sexually abuse her. And in "Him," we learn of the British secret agent who had happened by--"like the prince in the fairy tales," as she later tells us--and rescued her. Vivienne, as it turns out, is just as great a writer as Ian Fleming himself (ha ha!), and just as likely to use a plenitude of detail and product names while telling her tale. She is a very charming and self-assured young woman, who instantly gains our sympathies, and, in telling her own story, makes herself easily the most fully realized and (you'll pardon the expression!) completely fleshed-out female character in the Bond novels. Vivienne's tale is interesting to start with, despite its soap opera qualities, and turns out to be highly suspenseful and exciting by its conclusion. It affords us a look at Bond that is also unique in the novels; 007 had never before come off as so gallant, as such a white knight (the image of St. George and the dragon appears in the first section of Michel's tale as a bit of foreshadowing). And not just gallant as concerns the ladies; "TSWLM" gives us a glimpse into Bond's fair-play views on killing, too. When Vivienne demands to know why Bond just didn't shoot down the two thugs from a hidden position, Bond declares, "Never been able to in cold blood." And, in a moment that I just love, Bond tells Vivienne, "...these people are pros...By their own standards, that is." As it turns out, the two thugs are hardly a match for the man who had previously bested maniacs such as Red Grant and Oddjob, but still manage to give him a tough time. Bond, ultimately, has never seemed so appealing, as revealed in the farewell letter that he pens to Vivienne on motel stationery. No wonder Vivienne falls in love with him after just one night, and needs to be reminded by a fatherly state trooper that men like Bond, as well as the enemies they fight, are practically "a different species" altogether than the rest of us.

Though almost 50 years old as of this writing, "TSWLM" remains remarkably fresh, if a tad dated in spots. References to Jack Kennedy, Trans-Canada Airlines, cheap gas in America (Vivienne tells us that her Vespa would be able to cruise for only $1 a day!) and $8 motels seem like time-capsule items from another age, and yet, the book is as thrilling today as it must have been five decades ago. Fleming, apparently, was dissatisfied with the novel--one that almost comes off like a breather between the S.P.E.C.T.R.E. nastiness of "Thunderball" (1961) and "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (1963)--hence his insistence on ditching the story when it was ultimately brought to the screen. It turns out that Fleming was a better writer than he was a critic, however. This is, quite simply, a marvelous, smashing tale, and one that this old Bond fan simply adores. Like the best of the Bond books, it is one that will leave readers both shaken AND stirred....

[Benjamin Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well that was different…

Ian Fleming really changed things up with his 9th novel in the James Bond series. (Tenth book in the series if you count the collection of novelettes in “For Your Eyes Only”). First, Fleming changes from his usual third person point-of-view to a first person telling of the tale. Second, we don’t see the story unfold from Bond’s eyes but rather from Vivienne “Viv” Michel, a young Canadian lady trying to escape from her unlucky-at-love past and fleeing to small-town America. She gets caught up in what appears to be a mobster crime story, and two dangerous hoodlums.

The novel is broken down into three sections. The first, entitled “Me” allows Viv to tell her own backstory and is the longest part of the novel. It was a strange beginning for a Bond novel; who is this lady and where is Bond? Where is “M” and what is the mission? Why are we following the life of a Canadian gal with a privileged upbringing in her pursuit of doomed love affairs? Give me some double-0 action!

The second part of the novel, “Them” continues Viv’s story as she finds herself in a small rural motel confronted with the two baddies of the novel, Sol Horror, and Sluggsy Morant, (yes, those are their names) who have nefarious plans for the property. Viv is a looker so the two thugs decide to add assault and rape to their plans.

It is not until part three of the novel, “Him” where Bond finally makes his entrance and rescues the damsel in distress. It turns out he is on a mission and it involves the SMERSH gang, two of which are these two thugs. Bond spends more time spilling his mission secrets to this previously unknown woman than he does in taking out the bad guys and even though they prove tougher than the reader would at first suspect given their behavior, Bond eventually triumphs.

Many readers have criticized this particular Bond novel for being so different than the others. After all, it’s not really a “spy” novel at all but much more of a romance with some action sequences thrown in during part three. My opinion differs but then again, I love it when an author takes chances with a proven formula and tries new things. I found this novel quite enjoyable, although a quick read, and didn’t mind the dated attitudes towards women that seem to bother so many of today’s readers. (This is the novel that contains the infamous line from Viv claiming that "all women love semi-rape.") It’s also important to note that this novel is virtually nothing like the movie of the same name. About the only similarity is that one of the two thugs, Sol Horror, has metal-capped teeth. Not exactly Jaws, but there you go.

[Daniel Villines · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a strange little novel that has a halfhearted feel to it. So much so, that I occasionally wondered if Ian Fleming retrofitted a bad story to create a make-shift "James Bond" novel. I could see how easy it would be to change out the original hero’s name with James Bond and add a bit of back-story here and there to an already written manuscript. The process would not be seamless, leaving behind a choppy feel around Bond’s character, but In doing so, Fleming would have made a terrible novel marketable.

In support of this speculation is that Bond is nowhere to be found in the writing for the first two-thirds of the novel. When he does appear he acts more like an action-detective than a master spy. It’s also curious that when Fleming sold the movie rights to this novel, he sold only the title, The Spy Who Loved Me, and withheld the novel’s written content. Maybe he knew how deficient this James Bond story actually was.

The Spy Who Loved Me has a macho-driven plot with an over-played, helpless woman who delivers sex appeal and sex to the readers. James Bond (or whoever he was originally) supplies all the bravado and is yawningly effective at slaying dragons. And the criminals, while described by Bond as professionals, demonstrate comical stupidity and bumbling ignorance in all that they do. Thus, even if The Spy Who Loved Me is marketable, the novel is still terrible.

[Mike (the Paladin) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not too impressed with this one...too much soap opera for me I suppose. But even after all the blood shed, violence and warnings that "men" involved in this sort of life no matter which side are still dangerous...Viv is still in love with Bond.


Should I sigh here?

[Billy · Rating 1 out of 5]

So awful it actually makes the movie seem like Masterpiece Theatre.

Favorite line: "These men were Dynamite from Nightmare-land." It takes a rare talent to write something that bad.

[Briynne · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well, alright. Let's do this.

I find myself in the interesting position of feeling like I should issue an apologia for having read this before I actually discuss my reactions to this horrifying little book. I listened to the first part of this as an audiobook read by the estimable Nadia May, for the very reason that she was the narrator, and therefore I expected this would be a fun jaunt into a classic genre series. Obviously wrong, in retrospect. In fact, I switched to reading this in print because it was too revolting to listen to.

The second point in my defense of myself is that after a childhood of hating James Bond movies of the Connery-Brosnan era, I was surprised to find how much I enjoyed the Daniel Craig version of the character in the more recent movies. I felt like I had figured out what people had always seen in the character and franchise to some extent. The James Bond in "Casino Royale" and "Skyfall" is human, attractive, and just plain interesting. So, in my ignorance, I supposed that to mean I might be able to correspondingly appreciate the source material.

Alas.

This was the most excruciating thing I've read in a very long time. I literally just gaped at the pages as I read this - I should have just chucked it, but it was a proverbial train wreck. Ian Fleming must have been a very damaged individual with serious, pathological, in-need-of-vast-amounts-of-therapy-and-a-punch-in-the-face issues with women. I have no way of accounting for how else he could have written a character like Viv. I'm terrified to think that the attitudes and behaviors of men in this book could ever have been considered even in the ballpark of normal. The man literally wrote the sentence, "All women love semi-rape." Like he honestly sat down at a typewriter, typed that on purpose in a story with his name on it, sent it to a publisher, and was ok with millions of people knowing that that sentiment had come out of his head. In fact, that seems to be the actual theme of this book. The mind absolutely boggles.

I looked pretty hard in this book, and there is not one normal, decent man in the entire thing. Not one guy who didn't pinch, grab, insinuate, sleeze, threaten, bully, pressure, "semi-rape" (sorry, still can't believe I'm writing that like it's a real thing), or otherwise terrorize Viv during the story. Now, granted my opinions are that of an addled-brained woman, but just wow. What a load of cheap, sensational misogyny that is even more insulting because Fleming writes most of it as the thoughts of a woman. Bond is nothing more than the best of a very bad lot. Suffice to say, "yes means yes" apparently hadn't quite reached it's current vogue in the 1960s. Yuck. He's arrogant and sort of horrible, which cannot be excused by a reasonably nice letter when he left.

Well, this has been a perfectly awful waste of my life that I can't get back. Avoid, avoid, avoid.

[Hannah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Going to use this same review for all the James Bond books I read several years ago. Why did I keep reading them if I hated them so much? Because I kept hoping for ONE good book with ONE woman valued for more than just her body. And anyone out there can tell me it was a reflection of the times, but I throw that argument out. I've heard it used a lot for slavery, for example, but that fails too because there were always abolitionists, just like there have always been feminists, even if that word didn't necessarily exist back then.

Amazon was practically giving away these Ian Fleming books, so I'd bought them all. And ultimately, I hated myself for it. They are such sexist filth. Sure, I like the "good guys" winning as much as the next, but in every one of them, it felt like it was at the expense of some woman (the "Bond girl's") identity where she's reduced to nothing but an objectified and glorified sexual being whose sole purpose is to make James Bond look good. Ew. I would've known better (I hope) had the cover been one of the more semi-pornographic ones that seem to be more common, but the Kindle series I'd bought had very unrevealing cover art. UGH. And remarkably, I hadn't watched any of the older Bond movies - only started with Daniel Craig versions which I thought was just dumb sexist typical Hollywood. In retrospect, I should've known better!

[Dave Anderson · Rating 1 out of 5]

There is no worse sentence made up of letters and words from the English language than this: "All women love semi-rape." (Page 128) That is a tone deaf observation.

Ian Fleming's "The Spy Who Loved Me" is a badly written James Bond novel. It is Fleming writing from a woman's perspective, using first person narrative. It is the kind of novel that should inspire aspiring writers to rise up and say, "I can do better than this", and do so. I can only assume that Sue Grafton, Sara Paretsky, and Janet Evanovich - just to name-drop a few - said those very words once. I do not believe that any man can create an engaging and compelling female lead character...Except Stephen King and his first novel "Carrie".

Fleming's novel breaks two rules right from the start. "Write what you know", being the first; and, "Write honest". Being the second. The mere fact that this novel was published shows the time and culture Fleming thrived in. It was a white male dominated culture. James Bond is easily one of the greatest white male power fantasies. "The Spy Who Loved Me" is drunk and high on that premise. He is so full of his James Bond, that when he does finally make his appearance, it rings like a Second Coming. Even though terribly flawed. Fleming's Bond is bit more of a bungler in the novels than in the films, where he can do not wrong.

If you want to cast Fleming as a misogynist, go ahead. That sentence o page 128 seems to indicate it. From a more educated and modern perspective - following the "write what you know" and "write honestly" perspective, I would think that a woman likes to be courted and wooed. Maybe not so much rescued, as liberated. Perhaps dominated. A woman might want to find a man that is in some way unique and superior. But then, I'm a guy and I only know what a woman wants or likes from my own shoes. Fleming's fatal flaw is that he posits that he has some insight or knowledge on the female perspective here. He doesn't, and it shows. Viv Michel is a bad writer.

It is interesting that readers responded negatively en masse at the time and the book has never been adapted or fixed since first publishing. Only the title has been used for film. The novel landed with the resounding thud it should have. It is a shame that this was a missed opportunity for Fleming and the Bond series.

Maybe this is why there wasn't a Jinx spin-off film with Halle Berry...?

[Jim · Rating 1 out of 5]

Now, ask yourself this: Why would anyone be interested in reading a novel from the point of view of a Bond girl -- and a one-night stand at that! The book is 60% over before Bond appears -- in an isolated motel near Lake George in the Adirondacks where the girl, Viv Michel, is being threatened by two hoods.

I like Ian Fleming's James Bond novels -- but not this one. You can skip The Spy Who Loved Me. As far as I'm concerned, it was probably written by somebody else. The only reason I didn't abandon it is that I couldn't believe my eyes.

Probably Fleming's Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang is more to the point than this title.

[🩶 April • A.M. Flynn • 🩶 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent read. I read this quite awhile back.